This is something that I actually had the opportunity to use this week. It really came in handy and helped satisfy my client’s requirements.

Just a reminder as we discuss this tip, I am using MicroStrategy v9.4.1 and MicroStrategy Developer. Developer is the new name for MicroStrategy Desktop as of v9.4.1

This example demonstrates how to create a 3-level deep nested prompt that will prompt the user to select a year, then a quarter within that year, then a month within that quarter.

Prompt-in-prompt is a feature in which the answer to one prompt is used to define another prompt. This feature is only implemented for element list prompts. The following steps describes how to achieve this.

Create the Year Prompt

1. Create the highest level filter first. This is a filter which contains a prompt on an attribute element list. Create a filter on the attribute “Year” and click “Prompt“.
2. Click “prompt on attribute element list” and then click “Next” through the rest of the screens to accept the default values.
3. Do not set any additional conditions. Save the filter as “Year Filter“.

From this level on, each filter will contain both a prompt on an element list and will have its element list filtered by the filter created one level above it. There is no limit to the number of such filters that can be layered.

Create the Quarter Prompt

1. Create a filter on attribute “Quarter” and click “Prompt“.
2. Select “Use a filter to reduce the number of elements” and select the “Year Filter” created in the previous step.
3. Save this filter as “Quarter Filter” .

Create the Month Prompt

1. Follow the same basic procedure as above to create a Month filter. Create a filter on attribute “Month“.
2. Click “Prompt“.
3. Select “Use a filter to reduce the number of elements” and select the “Quarter Filter” created in the previous step.
4. Save this filter as “Month Filter” .

Try it Out

Place only the lowest level filter in the filter section of the report. In this case, the “Month Filter” will be placed in the filter section.

When the report is executed, it will prompt for Year, then for Quarters in the selected Year, then for Months in the selected Quarter, as shown in the following sequence of screen shots.